30 Days: "Braxton and His Stinky Jeans"

Braxton and His Stinky Jeans

By

Marion Copeland Steiger

I’m dying! It’s not a disease that’s killing me. It’s my Nana, and she’s laughing about it.

Nana’s always been okay with most things us grandkids do. She even likes my skinny jeans and said, “Cute guys like you with long, skinny legs look good in tight jeans.” She does wrinkle her nose when she sees them down to my “plumber’s crack.” Her words, not mine. When I’m not looking, she yanks them up and walks away.

Things were normal around here until Aaron asked, “Brax, when you gonna wash those jeans?”

Just like me, my 6^th grade friends hate clean jeans. They don’t feel good. We started hiding them from our moms. I can’t even wash mine cause they’re my last pair. The principal banned my others cause they had too many holes.

Aaron’s my cousin and BFF (Best Friends Forever). He never tells things we talk about, but Nana does, and she heard Aaron’s question. Worse than that, she heard my answer, and she’s gonna tell everybody by writing a story about me. I’m dead!

I really messed up when I answered Aaron. “I haven’t washed my jeans in eleven days.”

When Nana heard, she started laughing. She called them “stinky jeans” and laughed harder.

Nana’s always been special to me, and she knows it. So, when she kept saying “stinky jeans” and laughing, I guess I was embarrassed first, and then I got mad. That didn’t stop her. She kept laughing and started teasing me about writing a “stinky jeans” story.

Things got worse! My mom heard Nana and started gettin on my case about washing my jeans. That’s when I stopped talking to Nana. I didn’t look at her or listen to her even when she said she was sorry. But when she promised not to write the story, I slapped her high five and smiled. I even let her hug me.

Nobody mentioned it again, and I forgot about it… until Nana handed me a big envelope with my name on it. She said, “Don’t open this until you’re all alone. It’s only for you.”

I knew it! She was really gonna kill me. It had to be the “Stinky Jeans” story. I was freakin, but I acted cool. I hid the envelope under my computer and waited until Nana and Aaron left and my family fell asleep. I grabbed the envelope and started tearing the flap; then, I just ripped it open.

Out fell a smaller envelope, and I ripped it, too. Inside was a picture of me with Nana. I was wearing my skinny jeans. At the bottom, Nana wrote:

April Fools’ Day!

I love you!

There’s no “Stinky Jeans” story.

When I stopped holding my breath, I whispered to myself, “Don’t do anything stupid like answering private questions ever again! Especially, don’t tell Nana anything. She’ll write a story next time, for sure!”

Story copyrighted by Marion Steiger; all rights reserved by the author